Moonlight Ball Begins

Here's how to ruin your life, your reputation, and your romantic prospects in one glittering evening:

Step One: Get invited to a royal masquerade.

Step Two: Wear a mask enchanted by a half-sentient Spoon and three traumatized monks.

Step Three: Show up against your will.

Step Four: Realize all your maybe-fiancées are also attending. In disguise. In close proximity. With agendas.

Step Five: Discover that one of them is wearing your mask.

The Moonlight Ball was less "ball" and more "weaponized courtship." Think silk-on-silk violence. Think perfume so dense it counted as a magical barrier. Think dancing nobles spinning like glittering sharks.

And there I was. In a mask that may or may not have been leaking glitchlight.

"Smile," Spoon said from my breast pocket. "You look like you're about to assassinate a violinist."

"I feel like I'm about to assassinate a violinist."

"That's the spirit. Try not to combust."

The ballroom stretched above me like a cathedral drunk on luxury. Chandelier light shimmered off crystal goblets and weaponized hair ornaments. Everyone was masked. Everyone was scheming. Everyone looked vaguely ready to propose to someone, duel someone else, and then host a scandalous poetry reading about it afterward.

I was very out of my depth.

"Kael?"

I turned.

There she was.

Belladonna.

Wearing my mask.

Not one like it. Not a copy. Mine.

Black and silver. Glitchlight edge. The one that had spontaneously appeared on my pillow after the Mask Cult incident, which I had very responsibly buried under a pile of laundry and denial.

And now she was wearing it.

She tilted her head. Smiled like a guillotine.

"Nice mask," she said.

"You—how did you get that?"

"You left it in your dreams. I borrowed it."

Reader, I almost died on the spot.

The chaos escalated from there.

Mirielle arrived next, in blood-red velvet and a mask made of thorns and roses. She looked like a war goddess on sabbatical.

Then Seraphina appeared, ethereal and glowing, her mask a lattice of starlight. She didn't look at me. She just smiled. That was worse.

Aureline showed up in feathers. She cooed at me.

Someone in the crowd whispered, "Which one is he engaged to again?"

Someone else answered, "All of them. Probably."

I decided it was a good time to hide behind a decorative statue of a winged llama. It was labeled "Hope." It did not help.

The dancing began. The waltzes were cursed. The punch was possibly sentient. Someone was playing the harp too aggressively.

And of course—of course—a masked noble swept Belladonna onto the dancefloor.

"You look stunning," he said. "May I have this dance?"

She looked at me.

And said, "Why, of course, Kael."

Reader.

She pretended to be me.

On the dancefloor.

Flirting.

As me.

I tried to intervene. But then Seraphina grabbed my arm.

"One dance," she said, voice soft and full of celestial doom. "Let me borrow you."

I stumbled onto the floor. Immediately tripped. Into Aureline. Who caught me. Dipped me. Declared our engagement.

Loudly.

"I, Aureline of the Wind-Swept Vale, claim you before the stars!"

The ballroom gasped.

"He accepted!" someone shouted.

"I did not!" I said.

"Too late! It's magically binding!" yelled the Harpist.

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

"I'm the Royal Engagement Registrar!"

And then the spell went off.

It was, apparently, a "romantic resonance" charm laid over the ballroom. If two people shared true feelings and held hands under the chandelier, the system would attempt to solidify their bond with a formalized engagement ping.

Guess who accidentally touched hands with everyone.

Guess who got six overlapping betrothal alerts.

Guess whose Spoon short-circuited trying to reject them all.

Guess who the system defaulted to first.

Belladonna. Wearing my mask. As me.

System Ping:

Engagement Registered. Kael of Echo & Kael of Echo.

I was now accidentally engaged to myself.

Spoon rebooted.

"I warned you," it said.

"To be fair," I replied, "you also told me not to eat that cursed custard, and it was delicious."

"You are beyond help."

"Thank you."

Eventually, I escaped the ballroom by pretending to faint. It was half-pretend.

Belladonna followed me into the moonlit corridor.

"You okay, Kael?"

"Emotionally? No. Spiritually? Less. Romantically? Disqualified."

She laughed. Took off the mask. Looked at me with something too raw to be funny.

"You know," she said, "for someone who keeps saying he doesn't want a harem, you're not great at avoiding emotionally confusing dance-themed engagements."

"In my defense," I said, "I was cursed. By fate. And punch."

She smiled.

"Next time," she said, "maybe lead the dance."

And walked away.

Next Time on Yes, I Was Reborn. No, I Don't Want a Harem. Stop Looking at Me Like That:

Chapter 58 – "Midnight With the Maskmaker"

Kael is summoned by the last living maskmaker, who knew Dream-Kael. She shows him the original Mask of Echo—cracked, leaking glitchlight, and still tied to his soul. She says he already died once. And he still owes the System a price.